MUD PIES

I'm glad I don't have Skype. You would not want to see the office I work in at home--it has a small wall of bookcases absolutely filled with books, even on their side in stacks, and notebooks. My computer desk is always messy except when I let my guilty conscious push me to file or toss the stuff on it. But the shelves hubby built to hold photos, copies of the three books I've published, and some memorabilia are neat as a pin. One of the framed pieces is a card I received from my stepdaughter for a birthday one year.

I've always been an outdoors gal so I'm sure I was the model for this little girl in her raincoat sitting in the mud. If there was a puddle or mud, I was in it. If there was a fence to be climbed over or under, I was there. My mother couldn't keep sashes on dresses because I tore them off climbing trees, or scooting under barbed wire. And either my toes or my shoes were forever covered with mud when it rained.

My friends and I took our toy dishes out under the large sycamore tree in the front yard to have our tea parties. When it rained one day, we decided to make mud pies in our little tin pie pans. The grass wouldn't grow up near the trunk so we had an abundance of ingredients for our "baking."

My brother was less than a year old and we often took him out with us in our play. Being the eldest daughter, I often had the job of entertaining him while Mama cleaned house or cooked super. On one particular day, he slapped around in the mud. We sculpted our pies in the pans and pretended to eat our concoctions. Only Ralph didn't just pretend.

When Mama came out to gather him up for his nap he had mud all around his mouth. After her screams of disgust and shouts at us, you might understand that was the end of making mud pies. And today, Ralph, denies he would have ever done anything so
gross.

HEARTS OPEN, IDEAS WELCOME

The trick to writing is to keep your heart open; eyes are good too, but your emotions are what makes your writing sing. We who write often, know when we sit down each time, no matter how much we have written in the past, this day on something new is the first time all over again. And our heart has to be in the process.

If you're looking for ideas, all of the topics, scenes, characters, and stories are all around you. Look around the room you are sitting in, for example. I'm sure you will see something that will trigger an idea, or lead you to get on the Internet and research something you've seen until the essay or story begins to form.

Go out onto the street. Who lives in the area? What do they do for a living? How many children do they have, and can you recall something you've seen or heard them do that might give you an idea? Or go on a trip and keep notes. To a park--watch the children on the slide, or the homeless person digging through trash cans for cans to recycle.

Write about anything and everything you know. If you are curious about a subject, or hold a nostalgic memory in your heart, seek more information on the subject matter and share the story with the reading world.

In matters of the heart, or ideas your cherish, you are the expert, even if you've only been in this idea mode for a few minutes. Write!